


xi. hypothermia

by tempestaurora



Series: it's okay, we're okay [whumpvember 2018] [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Ending, Captain America: Civil War, Gen, Hypothermia, I mean it's not not Cap Friendly, Like, Tony-centric, Whump, Whumptober, its Tony's perspective after Siberia so we're not looking at Cap with rainbows and sunshine rn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 02:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16589042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestaurora/pseuds/tempestaurora
Summary: Howard Stark searching and searching, telling tales to a young Tony, too wide-eyed to know what would become of the man in the ice and how his story would loop around his, inexplicable and inextricable.There was a slither of Tony’s being that wished to go back in time and tell his younger self that he could hate Captain America all he wanted; he should use it as his very own shield, heft it high and carry it always, so when the good Rogers himself swung a punch, Tony would already be deflecting it.Everything was tinged with blue.





	xi. hypothermia

**Author's Note:**

> me on that civil war kick  
> i watched age of ultron again yesterday and honestly i get that there's defo shady stuff behind the accords and registering and stuff but legit, the avengers need to be put in check lmao the hulk loses control for five minutes and an entire city is demolished in the process
> 
> anyway, here, have hypothermia

Blue. Everything was tinged with blue.

Like sunlight on ice-

 

_The glint off the metal arm, the sunshine reflected in vibranium._

-like the outfit of the superhero. The saviour. America’s answer to injustice and danger. _Captain America._ There was always ice where that man was concerned. Always cold, a separation, the inability to break through and see the real picture.

Or maybe he’d thawed the ice, just not for Tony. Just not for the world and their safety.

But for—

 

_He’s my friend. (So was I.)_

Captain America crashing into the water, into the ice and freezing there for seventy years. Father, Father, Father – Howard Stark searching and searching, telling tales to a young Tony, too wide-eyed to know what would become of the man in the ice and how his story would loop around his, inexplicable and inextricable.

There was a slither of Tony’s being that wished to go back in time and tell his younger self that he could hate Captain America all he wanted; he should use it as his very own shield, heft it high and carry it always, so when the good Rogers himself swung a punch, Tony would already be deflecting it.

There was ice in the story of Sergeant Barnes too; falling to his death – _not death, not death, not death_ – off the side of a train, snow burying his body, arm torn from his torso. Was it snowing that night he killed Tony Stark’s parents? Mid December, country roads away from the city, Tony sitting by himself on Christmas day, alone, alone, alone.

Captain America and ice. And the way he was found in a block of it, melting and _still alive._ And the way they took down the Hydra base, covered in snow, where they met the twins and Ultron was born at last; finally possible, finally probable – _oh look, a wolf in sheep’s clothing._ Murdering JARVIS, tearing his coding apart. Not Captain America’s fault, but Tony remembered the judgement there.

Then this. Then the way his suit was the only thing keeping his heart beating, sending out distress signals because there was nothing else to do but die.

 

_A shield, cracking through the arc reactor, the suit losing all power._

It had to happen in the ice, too. In the place where the sun shone off it in blue; blue like Cap’s clothing, blue like the way he felt that Christmas morning, blue like the Tesseract and the glow of Loki’s sceptre as aliens poured out of the wormhole – _oh, that was blue, too._

Blue like Tony’s lips, fingertips; like the way shivering felt. Blue like the spots that were forming behind his eyes, like the walls and the ground, like the sky – though that was more grey, now the clouds had banded together to cover the sun, finally realising that today was not a day for sun; there was nothing good about it.

He was in and out. There and not. The suit had emergency power to send out the calls, one after another. _Vision. Rhodey. Happy. Pepper. Pepper. Pepper._ Where was she? Oh, right – they were on a break and she’d never come for him in fucking Siberia.

It was his fault, likely, that she’d gone. He was supposed to stop making suits, was supposed to reinvest himself in their relationship, in the company – but there was always another threat around the corner, and this time it came in the form of Steve fucking Rogers, who’d shared meals with him, and lived with him, and had more than once been drunk by his side and so incredibly giddy-

He wasn’t supposed to be making suits still, but he had been, and Pepper had left and now he was falling asleep amid the ice of Siberia, a shield he didn’t even fucking want sitting by his side.

_My dad made that shield!_

He didn’t want anything his father had ever touched, including himself, including Steve Rogers, including the Avengers that had decided that Barnes was more important that the public-

No, scratch that. He wanted one thing. He wanted his Aunt Peggy, but she was six foot under and he hadn’t even gone to the funeral. He’d been trying to clean up Rogers’ mess, and Rogers was right there, carrying her coffin down the aisle and not at all wondering where Tony Stark, godson to the wonder woman of Peggy Carter, was.

He was in and out, still. There and not. One minute blinking into the cloud-covered sky and the next he was in a slumber he couldn’t help but awake from. He shot out of it each time; a shield ramming into his chest.

 

_I thought it was going to be my head._

There was a figure, above him, red in hue and all he could think was _thank god it’s not blue._ It carried him, they carried him, his head tilting back, eyes drooping – then, he’d shudder. The Winter Soldier strangling the life from his mother. Captain America fighting with everything he had.

Tony hadn’t used half of his weapons. He’d gone _fucking easy_ and he was the one left in the ice. Maybe he should’ve frozen there, been left there, been thawed out in a hundred years and been the new man out of time, but maybe there wouldn’t be another hundred years, because there was always something coming for Earth-

There was an endgame, a monster lurking in shadows, waiting to tear them apart for all they were worth.

And the Avengers, Earth’s mightiest heroes, were fractured, were split.

Tony had just wanted to bring them in quietly, save them from the hit squad that wouldn’t hesitate to shoot them dead. He’d just wanted to trust the people around him – and he had, until Natasha Romanoff showed she was still a double agent, no matter how she acted. No matter the long nights of insomnia they spent side by side, or the morning cups of coffee they inexplicably shared.

No matter what Tony gave them, or what he said, they were all waiting to turn on him.

 

-

 

He awoke with a start, the shield crashing into the arc reactor all over again behind his eyes. He was in a medbay; a heart monitor beeping somewhat steadily behind him. The door to his room was open and no one sat by his side.

Tony blinked through the sleep and sat up, hissing at the pain in his left arm – it was always the left arm – and reaching out to grab the chart sitting on his bedside table.

Half the words were in German, so he could guess where he’d been shipped back to – but the ones in English listed minor injuries, one after the other, then _hypothermia._ Tony huffed. That made sense, too, in its own stupid way.

That Captain America could leave him for dead in the tundra and all he would get is hypothermia and nightmare fuel to last a lifetime.

There was the sound of chattering from outside his room and Tony looked up, searching for it. This was likely a private hospital, or maybe part of a government building, so why did it sound like there was a child walking the halls?

_Ah. Him._ Tony watched Happy usher Peter Parker, the Spiderling, through the hall, the older man looking weary and worn. Peter was talking, rushed and happy, about something or other, when they looked over to see Tony sitting there in his bed.

Both fell to a stop outside the door, and Tony could see the worry in Happy’s eyes and the confusion in Peter’s. Most of all, he could see the hesitance in stepping into the room.

For some reason, Tony made the decision for him. “Hey, kid.”

Peter’s face changed expression, just slightly. “Hey, Mr Stark!” he said, entering. Happy rolled his eyes, following him in, and immediately taking the chart from Tony’s hands to have a look over it, as if he hadn’t already read it a hundred times. “Are you feeling better? Happy said you got a bit injured.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m alright now. What about you? That was a hell of a fight you put up.” He didn’t know why he was even talking to the kid, let alone starting up a real conversation. Maybe he was starved of positive attention. Maybe his girlfriend, the love of his life, had left him, and maybe his only friends had all betrayed him, and maybe his best friend in the world had fallen and lost the use of his legs-

Maybe there was only a handful of people on the face of the planet who could’ve provided Tony with positive attention, and all of them had left him bar the ones in this room. And Happy was being silent, regretful, maybe – but Peter.

Peter didn’t know half the shit that weighed Tony down daily. He was still looking at Tony Stark like he was a superhero, not a failure of a boyfriend and an Avenger.

“Oh, I’m good. I had a few bruised bones or something, but they’re all healed up now.” Tony raised his eyebrows at that and Peter elaborated: “Enhanced healing. I’ve got this one on my jaw, still, but otherwise I’m good.” Peter tilted his head and Tony saw the purple mark, already mostly healed before nodding, satisfied.

“That’s good, kid. Thanks for the help out there the other day.”

“It’s no problem, Mr Stark! I mean I fought with the _Avengers_! How cool is that? And the suit’s amazing, Mr Stark – it’s so much better than what I used to wear, and-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony said with a smile, waving him off. The fact he was smiling at all was a miracle, in Tony’s opinion. “Glad you like it. Hey, Hap, are we heading back to the States soon?”

“I was gonna stick the kid on the private jet in about an hour, yeah.”

Tony nodded. “I’d rather be anywhere but here.”

Happy nodded like he understood and excused himself to find the doctor who would discharge Tony with enough pestering. Peter glanced nervously at Happy’s retreating back before looking over to Tony.

“How old are you again?” Tony asked, noticing how young he looked.

“Fourteen,” Peter replied. “But I’m almost fifteen.”

Tony nodded, blowing out a breath. “You don’t tell your hot Aunt about this, okay?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Mr Stark – I’m not gonna tell her about Spiderman. She’d ground me for a century and force me to eat her cooking for the rest of my life.” He cracked a smile and Tony exhaled one of his own.

“That Walnut and Date Loaf was not great.”

Peter pulled a face. “I keep trying to tell her but she won’t listen. The other day she got so excited because she hadn’t burned dinner and when we started eating we realised she hadn’t burned it because the chicken was still _raw._ ”

Peter wasn’t blue, part of Tony’s subconscious realised. He may have had blue walls in his bedroom, that blue jacket with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows – but he was not blue. He was not Captain America. He wasn’t Iron Man, either, despite the red focal points of his suit. (Tony wondered what it meant, absently, that the Spiderman suit was coloured both Iron Man red and Captain America blue – would it mean he’d fall into the same traps both of them had triggered, or would he dodge them and become greater than them both? He hoped for the latter.)

But Peter wasn’t blue, so Tony felt himself smiling despite the hypothermia, despite the pain in his left arm, despite the way he couldn’t stop seeing the shield swooping down to catch him in the throat – no, the chest. Would Cap have ever gone for the kill?

They took the private jet back to the States, concocted a lie on Peter’s camera to serve as an alibi, and Tony let the warmth of Peter’s nervous chatter slowly push the bad thoughts out of his mind. When his head was clearer, he could see solutions, unfolding in front of him. He could see Spiderman protecting Queens, could see fixes to the Accords and a set of high-tech braces for Rhodey’s legs. Could see a way to keep tabs on the missing Avengers, a way to keep the press at bay, a way to maybe win Pepper back and never let her go again.

Peter chattered, as not-blue as a person could be, and Tony closed his eyes against it. There was darkness, behind his eyelids; a backdrop for whatever horrors his subconscious wanted to send him in his sleep.

Tony didn’t have a lot of things to be thankful for in that moment, but he had two for sure: the constant chatter of a kid who didn’t know any better, and the knowledge that there was no ice in Manhattan.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading! pretty pls talk to me in the comments!
> 
> tomorrow is electrocution and its a fun one


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